'In April here beneath the flowering thorn,
He heard the birds their morning carols sing;
And he, perhaps, for aught we know, was born
Not half a furlong from that self-same spring.
'Now here is neither grass nor pleasant shade;
The sun on drearier hollow never shone;
So will it be, as I have often said,
Till trees, and stones, and fountain all are gone.'
'Grey-headed Shepherd, thou hast spoken well;
Small difference lies between thy creed and mine.
This beast not unobserved by Nature fell;
His death was mourned by sympathy Divine.
'The Being that is in the clouds and air,
That is in the green leaves among the groves,
Maintains a deep and reverential care
For the unoffending creatures whom he loves.
'The pleasure house is dust, behind, before,
This is no common waste, no common gloom.
But Nature, in due course of time, once more
Shall here put on her beauty and her bloom.
'She leaves these objects to a slow decay,
That what we are, and have been, may be known;
But at the coming of a milder day,
These monuments shall all be overgrown.
'One lesson, Shepherd, let us two divide,
Taught both by what she shows and what conceals,
Never to blend our pleasure or our pride,
With sorrow of the meanest thing that feels.'
W. Wordsworth